Habitual
by jenni3penny
Summary: Mostly angst, some smut, a smidgen of end fluff, completely Kibbs. Spoilers for "Minimum Security' (S1:E8) and 'See No Evil' (S2:E1). "He was asking for a promissory. Permission to own. Permission to take whatever the hell he wanted. He was looking at her like he hadn't a clue that he'd never needed permission in the first place... Of course 'yes', you absolutely blind basta
1. Chapter 1

It started after Cuba. Because it'd been in Cuba that, while trying to make a point about she couldn't even remember what, his graveled and angry tone had followed her right on into the craptastically tiny bedroom she'd gotten stuck sleeping in. And she'd just let him keep on rolling along as she'd swallowed down two pain relievers and her birth control with a long chugging from a bottle of water.

He'd been such an ass on that trip, spouting a stern line of Gibbs-Rules- _Bull-Shit_ about DiNozzo and Cassidy and agents not getting involved with each other.

She'd been fairly sure that he'd been talking about way more than Tony trying to get into another skirt. Especially when earlier in the trip he'd nearly physically accosted the coffee pot while studiously ignoring the fact she was still wearing a whole lot of nothing under that jersey.

* * *

 _"You putting clothes on before we leave?" He sometimes used a tone on her that said it was her fault he found her as attractive as he did. Like she'd gotten Abby to hoodoo-voodoo his ass into liking her a little too much. "Or is this tanning day?"_

 _Hypocrisy, thy name is 'Leroy Jethro'... because you're staring at my ass._

 _"You gonna leave the coffee pot in one piece?" She'd get coffee later. A bottle of water from the fridge was warmer than his disposition. "Because if you break it I'm pretty sure we have to buy it."_

* * *

That was what she remembered.

That and thinking it was awfully ironic (mostly hypocritical) that later he'd so intently watched her drop the birth control case back into her make-up bag while she took another strong swill of water and just silently waited for him to make his point.

Irony looked delicious in his eyes when he blatantly looked at her like she was the only pretty little piece of fruit in the garden he actually wanted to taste.


	2. Chapter 2

She quickly realized, the very first time, that it hadn't ever been about Cuba or Paula screwing up (again, and again, and sweet Jesus, girl – _get your shit straight_ ). Or even the fact that for once Tony really, really, _really had_ been sweetly smitten. It hadn't even really been about whatever he thought his precious list of rules protected.

Because the first time he'd come to her door was the night Master Sergeant Lowens had buried his six year old daughter.

Not after they'd found the girl's battered little body in Arlington, wrecked up in the woods and mistreated in ways she'd nightmare about all the way to the confessional. Not after she'd realized how rigid every muscle of him had become as he'd so softly and silently just pulled the crisply dried leaf from the child's matted bangs. It had been the night of the funeral instead – and she'd winced her eyes closed when his hand had been just as slow and shakily soft in pushing her hair back off her face.

* * *

 _"You can't save them all, Gibbs." It sounded just as trite and thin when she said it out loud to him as it had when she'd started repeating the mantra to herself hours after Ducky had loaded the girl's body carefully, reverently, into the Autopsy truck. "It's not your - "_

 _"Shut up."_

 _Oh, oh hell no. He wasn't getting away with taking on the full 'mea culpa' for this one – and especially not when he was prowling on her so fixedly._

 _She could be just as self righteously self destructive and she had the full swing of good-old-Catholic-guilt on her side._

 _He wasn't carrying this one all by himself. "It's not your - "_

 _"Please?" It looked like it physically pained him to use the word this time. Like it was near on to begging as he studied her mouth and used prying fingers to jerk her rib cage closer, leading her breasts and hands into his chest without hesitation. "Please, Kate?"_

 _"Please shut up?" She knew for a fact that clearly wasn't all he'd meant. Because he was letting a groan lean off his lungs as she relaxed her body and pressed tighter into him._

 _If you're gonna light a fire, Caitlin – might as well use the gasoline._

 _She shifted her hips into his just to feel him, only slightly annoyed by how perfectly tall he was but sighing pleasure into how halfway to fully hard he was against her. She may have moaned her head back (she would never admit to that sound out loud), letting him catch against the base of her neck as she closed her eyes and intentionally arched into him, a pert smirk catching her lips as he reflexively met the movement._

 _"Look at me?" His other hand was firmly on her ass and grinding her right into his erection as he stared her down and back to reality, and goddamn, how'd he move that fast? "Yes?"_

 _He was asking for a promissory. Permission to own. Permission to take whatever the hell he wanted._

 _He was looking at her like he hadn't a clue that he'd never needed permission in the first place._

 _"Yes." Of course 'yes', you absolutely blind bastard. Put your glasses on, you stubborn -_

 _"Good." He'd said it quickly, like a decision made as he'd finally just put his mouth to hers._

 _She didn't think she'd ever explicitly told him 'no' and really ended up meaning it._

 _How was it he couldn't see that?_

* * *

He knew 'no' was no longer in her vocabulary when he was the one making the request.

Sure, she argued with him, she countered him with that snippy tone that sounded more like she'd become his latest wife rather than his subordinate. Usually because she had an annoyingly accurate point to make. Or felt the need to remind him that she was quickly becoming his undeniable conscience. But not a ' _no_ '.

Nothing so emphatic as denying him anything he really wanted of her.

And having her the first time, so completely agreeable to anything he'd wanted to do with her, so seemingly confident that she was safe with him regardless of how rough he'd been on her...

Letting himself touch and taste and breathe her - it'd made him weak.

Because all he'd really wanted was to do everything with her.


	3. Chapter 3

He was the alpha male. That was the excuse she liked to tell herself.

He was undeniably strong, controlling, intuitive - more than physically capable of taking her on, down, under and up against whatever was close.

However... however, he was every big fat ' _no_ ' she could think of when it came to every day life.

That last drink that shouldn't be taken before driving home? _Big mistake._

Coffee after eight pm? _Don't do it, Kate. You'll be awake all night._

Lying about her height at the DMV? _But, honestly, did her height really matter to the guy who gave her a ticket for double parking outside of DC Beans?_

Letting Leroy Jethro Gibbs lock her hands against a wall while he skimmed his mouth down her throat and lower? _Warning: critical failure of all logic as well as basic reasoning skills._

* * *

 _"This has to stop." It wasn't easy to say it when he'd managed to drive two fingers into her while his thumb stubbornly circled her clit over and over and over -_

 _"So make me stop, Kate." Smug son of a bitch._

 _His head was close enough to hers that she couldn't catch focus of his eyes but if she'd let herself turn her head just a fraction she'd catch his bottom lip in her teeth and happily nibble on it until he pulled his fingers out of her and replaced them with his cock._

 _"I'm being serious, Gibbs." She shook her head, tried to keep shaking it even as he groaned his mouth hotly open against her cheek and added double the pressure to each swipe he made with his thumb."We have to stop -"_

 _"If it has to stop, then stop it." It was an obvious challenge, a whispered little gauntlet smacking on her pride as he lifted his jaw and just laid such a gently made kiss to her temple that she felt as though she'd puddle down the wall to the floor if he dared pull his hand from between her legs._

 _"Didn't think so." He murmured down into her ear, slowly drawing his fingers from inside her in what she could only imagine was a punishment for bringing any brand of logic into the situation. "Tell me what you want."_

 _She whimpered a begging sound, lifting her thigh as much as she could against the bridged up fabric of her skirt to trap his hand. "Don't."_

 _"Don't what?" He was still wiping and tweaking on her clit, slower though, like a pattern of patience as he studied her face intently. His other hand was cradling her lower spine, flat palmed and warmly pressed._

 _"Don't go." God, she hated that he made her beg him when he was in this mood._

 _Except that he knew she sorta liked it._

 _"Thought you wanted to stop."_

 _She thumped her head back, felt how tightly his fingers clenched on her in response to the violently annoyed shift. "You're such a bastard."_

 _"You can stop it." He taunted her so quietly, obviously teasing on her with intricately light touches and a withholding of his mouth from hers. "Or I can put my mouth between your legs instead of my hand. Tell me what you want."_

 _She blinked before she stole a sharp kiss off his lips, watching his face as he grinned back at her with a look of certain victory. Her hand braced the curve between his neck and shoulder, pressing against it as she nodded. "Down."_

 _"That all you want, Katie?" That specific angling of his head always said he knew the answer to the question before he'd asked it. Certain entrapment. She'd watched him long enough to know that much. "That what you need?"_

 _"Down." She repeated, digging her nails against his shoulder._

 _"I don't think it is." He was still teasing, wiping his lips back and forth between her breasts even as he acquiesced and dragged lower down the front of her. "You want more."_

 _"Now."_

* * *

She knew, as she watched him sleep, that she wasn't ever going to get any more than what she had.

But maybe, considering how perfectly her leg fit over his hip when they were finished and exhausted and he finally, _finally_ , got some real rest... maybe she didn't need anything else.

Maybe she could live with 'not enough', wrapped up together on his couch.

She'd lived for years on a whole lot less.


	4. Chapter 4

She knew that they had mastered an absolutely ridiculous pattern out of this, just about when he'd nodded smug amusement and met her silently (once again) on his front steps. He hadn't even taken his coat off, just grabbed a couple beers from his fridge and waited her out on the stoop.

They'd done it before. Sitting on the steps for the length of a drink.

They always pretended, at first, that it was a celebration – always after they'd managed to somehow save something of a child.

He had always managed to convince her to stay – not that she had needed (or ever really would need) all that much convincing.

But, generally, the way he tended to rub her hair up between his fingers made her trust her gut and let him lead her wherever he wanted her. And 'wherever he wanted' usually ended up being underneath him and moaning as he ruthlessly dragged her toward coming again (too soon, Christ, the man had no sympathy) just so he could make her shatter up.

* * *

 _"Ya know, having to watch these parents -"_

 _"We did good, Kate." He was sweetly (apologetically?) re-buttoning her shirt, head shaking back and forth as he worked the bottom two buttons before appreciatively considering her breasts and leaving the rest open. "Don't go there."_

 _"I'm just... makes me think maybe I'm lucky that I don't actually have kids." He'd snapped the top two buttons anyhow, right after she'd told him that if he planned to ruin another shirt he'd damn well better plan to take her shopping also._

 _"You still want to." The contradictory way he looked at her pretty much perfectly matched the smugly negative shake of the head he'd given her just before snapping her shirt open and downing his mouth on her breasts._

 _"Yeah, someday I guess." Her fingers unconsciously fidgeted the shirt tighter closed and she realized that he'd flinched at the movement, his head lifting to watch her face as she spoke. "I'll fit it in between dead Petty Officers and missing Marines and do you realize how many detached body parts we've had to - "_

 _"You'll have it." His hand was always the control, it was always the warning, the waiting, the stop and the go. And he curved it to her wrist, the other one lifting to slake her shirt back open as he nodded slowly. "Stop worrying. You'll get there."_

 _The implication was... not with him. Big picture reality, Kate. He wasn't the picket fence kind._

 _This was not his route to happiness – this was his bypass of misery._

 _And she hadn't realized how much that truth would really hurt until he'd set it out between them._

 _"You'll make a great mom, Kate." He seemed to know, somehow, that she'd locked herself back from him, his hands dropping as he sadly shook his head at her. "Don't rush it."_

 _"You never wanted kids? You're amazing with - "_

 _"I only want the one I had." He said it so clearly, so surprisingly honestly as he lifted her lost skirt into her fingers and dropped one soft kiss against her collarbone._

 _Then he'd turned his back on her and she thought that maybe the furious marks she'd left along his shoulders were the last thing she'd see of him for ever and ever._

 _He'd ended up in the basement and she'd turned all the upstairs lights off before she'd left._

* * *

She'd never asked him to elucidate, never requested an explanation for the statement he'd given her – the one that she privately thought was probably the most important statement of his life (that nobody else seemed to know about). He'd given her the words in a moment that had been more stripped bare than just her without her skirt on – the one he liked second best. Because the white pencil skirt was his obvious favorite.

He'd given her the most simple of answers to a pretty equally simple question – and she'd prized that honesty.

She didn't need to know anything more than what he'd said, because those simple words had explained a hell of a lot more than she'd expected such a short statement could. He was amazing with children, and maybe now she had an inkling of why. It was like those tiny human beings were really the only people in the universe he could tuck behind the wall he'd made of himself and have an actual, legitimate, conversation with.

She hadn't asked for an explanation and he certainly didn't seem to want to give her one.

(Because the long range and big picture explanation was, simply, that it had all started after Cuba because that's when he'd seen evidence that there was a high percentage chance he couldn't-wouldn't get her pregnant.)

It had taken a few weeks for them to come back to what they were passing off as normal. And she'd been almost surprised to find that when he did show up at her door once again, there hadn't been a single child involved. It'd actually been a strangled Lieutenant Commander, one that Tony had loudly told the whole wide squad room looked a hell of a lot like her.

If she were to consider it later (which, of course, she did), she'd realize that she damn well saw him flinch hard into the other man's taunting statement before laying a look on her that had gone aching.

She'd somehow known from that look that they were back to whatever the classification of 'normal' was for them.

That's why she'd showered as soon as she'd gotten home, before he could even knock.


	5. Chapter 5

Sandy Watson had been the endgame. She'd been the one they saved and still, in some little way, lost. It didn't matter how strong he was and it hadn't mattered that they'd argued repeatedly and neither of them gave a damn anymore that they'd done every thing that they could.

They'd found the girl. _Victory_.

They'd found the mother. _Reward_.

They'd found the real monster in the father. _Completely unnecessary Karmic retribution_.

And she'd seen unadulterated rage on him – a fury that had, at once, terrified her and made her want to climb up the gorgeous length of him and take it all on. Hard. And fast. And if there were bruises on her thighs or scrapes on her hips or bite marks along her shoulder then, goddamn it, she'd enjoy the ache twice as much tomorrow. Then still probably ask him to do it again. Harder this time. Faster. Rougher. All with those perfect hands and that mouth and -

She'd managed to never make the throaty pleased sound of complete lust where anyone but him could hear it... at least until Tony turned her a look so oddly indecipherable that she realized she'd guttered it out right there in front of both of them. He'd shaded a double blinking on her before easing closer to Gibbs in caution and then turning another look over her that suddenly said he knew exactly (oh, hell, _exactly_ ) what she'd been thinking. And she'd just lifted her jaw into it before shrugging her glance back over the older man as he'd turned Watson off the wall and shunted him roughly in DiNozzo's direction.

Tony hadn't necessarily been the only one to hear it, either. She was pretty sure about that.

Because he stepped into her space so tightly, with anger live-wired along the stretch from his shoulders to his hands, that she'd flinched a little.

"I don't wanna see his face again." The grating in his voice was low, so deliciously rasped from his throat as he let his jaw angle over her. "Is that understood?"

"I'll take care of it." She felt the words come off her like she was just agreeing to pick up milk on the way home and DiNozzo's head shot back in her direction so fast that whiplash was a legitimate possibility.

Then Gibbs had just looked at her like he trusted her implicitly to do so, guileless blue-eyed trust.

To take care of everything, in more than one arena.

And that scared the ever-loving shit out of her.

* * *

 _"I'm not sure I can keep doing this."_

 _He just shrugged it off, stepping around his desk to meet the way she was turning toward him."Case is over. Let it go."_

 _"I don't mean the case, Gibbs." I mean you. You're dangerous to me. You're my train wreck._

 _"You're not coming." His face said he wasn't angry, he wasn't confused, he wasn't even all that sad. He was completely resigned. And that actually made her feel worse._

 _"No." She couldn't match his eyes because she knew she'd lose her guts, possibly by vomiting on his shoes."And you probably shouldn't - "_

 _"Yeah, I get it, Kate." His stilted kiss on her temple reminded her that even as rough as they'd always been on each other, his hands had always been more cautious than not._

 _"Sorry."_

 _And he'd always kissed something of her so very softly after their desperation had collided._

 _Shit. Oh, shit. Oh, hell... boy, had she been wrong. Had she been?_

 _"What?"_

 _"I said," his voice said he was all of those things she hadn't thought possible, and hurt too, "I'm sorry."_

 _"Wait." Maybe I was wrong and maybe I'm the biggest idiot you've ever met._

 _"Goodnight, Katie."_

 _"Wait." Her hand tugged on his jacket and stilled him just in front of her darkened desk. "Just... let me think."_

 _"Can't." His hand, his control, pushed hers away. "You're too smart. I let you think and you'll realize I really am just a bastard."_

* * *

He'd waited anyhow. Because, hell, habits were addictive, habitual. That's why they were habits.

Primarily, though, he waited because she'd told him to - and maybe a little bit of him was hoping that she'd meant the waiting part more than the not showing up part.  
Then waiting had turned into a sort of sullen loitering and he took the first beer down hard, angry and jerked swallows on an already sore throat. The second he'd nursed, his forefinger looped against the neck gently, mentally saying goodbye to all the little things he'd really really liked about her. Starting with the fit of the shirt she'd been wearing all day and her undiluted pride in having saved that precious genius of a girl. And...

Well, it ended up being a longer list than he'd expected.

Which was why he was still on the step when she parked at the end of his driveway.

He put the bottle to his lips to keep from smiling, not knowing how she'd take it; not completely knowing how he meant it either.

"Did you think it'd work?" The tucked around way her arms were curled under her breasts made him frown as he swallowed, watching her gain on him up the sidewalk.

She was being defensive already, even while she was the one stalking up on him.

"Did I think what would work?" He asked wearily into loosening his wrist onto his knee, the bottle hanging between long splayed legs.

"Breaking me." He was pretty sure that she didn't realize she always lifted her jaw at him when she was feeling like she had to double something up inside just to match him. "Incrementally hurting me enough to stop loving you. Wearing me down."

"You don't love me, Kate." At least, he hoped for her sake that she actually didn't, because that was a merciless fucking job these days. But then the look of unexpected betrayal that wounded her eyes darker made him reconsider it. "And that's not what it was. You think I'd do that to you? That what you really think of me?"

She shrugged and seemed disjointed from herself as she lifted her head to study the house, looking at it like she'd never truly seen it before. Never really seen him in his entirety before. As though she just didn't know what about him to trust anymore. That smarted on him. That he hadn't managed to somehow prove to her that he'd actually meant more good things than bad. That in leaving space between them he'd left such a wide gaping hole that she could overthink miles outside of her own head.  
He knew she was prone to over-thinking things. Had somehow known she'd re-double-think them straight into a mess that looked a hell of a lot like this one.

Maybe that's why he'd chosen her, though. Unconsciously.

Because she was two times too smart to just let him keep destroying them both.

"I think you're drinking my beer." And there it was, _thank God_. That candid but somehow still sweet ability to take a deep breath and subtly remind him that, _for fuck's sake, it's just life, Jethro. (Sh)it happens._

Sometimes, if he closed his eyes and only heard the words and not her voice, she sounded just like Shannon. It was cosmically unfair to her, he knew, but... Christ, he couldn't help the comparison.

"You said you weren't coming." He poutingly dug the heel of his shoe into the sidewalk as he avoided the realization that she'd showered and changed and he missed that shirt she'd been wearing but a plain white tank top was pretty delicious too. He knew he looked like a petulant little boy in doing so and didn't give a damn as he set the bottle aside.

Because at least she'd still shown up.

Because she dropped one hand from under her breasts to rub along his ear, leading his head into her touch even when he thought, probably, she should treat him like an imminent detonation.

 _Just let go and back away slowly, baby. No sudden movements and everything's gonna be all right._

She wouldn't, though. She couldn't. He knew that too. And he'd take advantage of it if it meant she'd stay standing where she was.

Her hand spread full and curved the back of his head as she stepped into the space between his legs and lifted his slouching so that he could groan his face just above her belt. "Then why were you waiting for me?"

"Because you _told_ me to." The words rushed hard into her stomach, hot breath and annoyance and exhaustion. "Twice. I _do_ listen, Caitlin."

He felt her suck in a surprised breath at the response, lifted his head into the tightness that came up her body. She was looking at him like he was a blank piece of paper for her to draw on. Suddenly too many available possibilities.

"Sandy wanted to know what our address is." The laugh that breathed off her wasn't made of humor, it was nervous and thready as she looked down on him. "Our... God, Gibbs... that kid. She's - "

"What? Our what?" There was an implied duality to the intensity of how he said it, questioning what she'd said and questioning what she'd meant at once. He watched her eyes widen a little, her head tipping an angle that had her hair crowding over him as she leaned closer and gripped her palm harder into the back of his neck.

"She wants to send us an invitation for her next recital." She'd breathed deeply and chosen the easy response - but he sure as shit couldn't blame her considering they'd found some semblance of balance again.

" _Our_ address?" He repeated with interest, wiping his face into her shirt, smelling more than just forgiveness on her.

"You smell like me." She explained as he took a deep breath of her into his lungs. "I smell like you."

"Kate." The complete drop of his head into her stomach was even more comfortable than it had been earlier, something had washed out between them and had been replaced by the gentle silence of combined forgiveness. He'd said her name like the final line of the argument, the page break, chapter's end.

"And apparently your voice alters when you're speaking to me alone." She'd probably never admit to how very much she actually liked the silk softened shortness of his hair right at the back of his ear, especially when she could just wipe her fingers on it without explanation. "She was very specific about that. I don't remember what range - "

"It wasn't about breaking you. Or hurting you."

"I know." She ignored the unspoken apology, tweaking against his ear playfully. "You drank my beer."

A snorted laugh heated through her shirt. "I have more."

"So go get me one, Gibbs." Her fingers tugged at his hair lightly.

He lifted his head back into her fingers, the rise of his glance catching her careful smile. "You staying?"

Kate stepped back from the way he was shifting, letting him draw taller than her again. "We'll see."


	6. Chapter 6

"Just stay, Kate." She'd thought it probably the closest he was going to get to repeating a 'please'. "Please?"

Huh. Apparently not. Maybe she'd underestimated him so completely that she felt tremendously guilty in her earlier accusations. No, she hadn't actually thought he was capable of intentionally hurting her by way of sex. If she'd actually thought that, she never would have had sex with him in the first place. Still, she'd had to find a way to fight through to him – and if that accusation had made him open those beautiful blue eyes for just one second... It'd been worth hurting him by way of accusation.

 _Sure, and who's the bastard now, Caitlin?_

"Sure you want me to?" There was guilt in her voice and an ashamed flush along her throat as she turned her head into his watching.

"I wouldn't have asked." He wasn't actually touching her, wasn't pressing anything on her, pushing or leaning or physically pressuring in any way. "I said 'please'."

"You also apologized." She lifted her head into saying it, noting how gently he was studying her face as she reminded him that she was the thing that kept making him break his own rules.

"Yeah," He so easily agreed. "I did."

* * *

 _It ended up being, maybe, the first time he'd really just taken his time to actually love on her._

 _After an eight year old prodigy had emotionally wrecked them all into realizing how ridiculously (fortuitously, undeniably, terrifyingly) lucky they were on a daily basis._

 _Because he'd taken her to bed like she was fragile, with warmly careful hands and kisses that were slowly and invitingly personal. He'd taken her to bed like he'd only ever wanted her to stay there in the first place, breathlessly watching her face as he'd driven deeply into her over and over again - rather than taking her up against a wall (his boat, the kitchen counter, the couch) and begging her to just, please, please come first._

 _"Look at me." His palm braced her jaw and forced her head turning toward his. "Hi."_

 _"Hello." Good God, she blushed, actually blushed in response to the way he was looking at her. "Are we going?"_

 _That trademark smirk of his tipped closer, fingers following each other down the front of her throat. "Going where?"_

 _"To Sandy's recital." Despite his familiarity with her body, she felt completely bare to the way he was dragging the sheet down off the front of her, her lungs rising hard as his fingers lifted again to trace down her sternum. "I mean -"_

 _"Like a date?" His body shifted so that he was leaned up into her side, head in his other hand as he grinned obnoxiously. "You wanna hold hands in the car too?"_

 _"Don't be an ass." She shot him a glare that she didn't mean, knowing he'd take it for what it was._

 _Gibbs gave her a slacked shrug, circling his finger around on one breast, watching the tightening of her skin as he got nearer to her nipple. "I am an ass."_

 _"I don't want to lose track of her, Gibbs." She caught his hand still, the sharp movement drawing his attention up as she just flattened his palm down and let him close his hand against her breast. "She's special. She needs to be reminded how amazing she is. Especially after - "_

 _"Yes." The roughness in his voice was a combination of impatient agreement and probably a measure of lust. "We're going. Happy?"_

 _"Yeah," Kate drawled her head up closer to his, rubbing her hair into his pillow idly, "I'm absolutely thrilled that I've guilted you into it."_

 _"I was going anyhow." The slow massaging rub of his hand under hers was absolutely a tactical decision, a twinkling brightening up his eyes as he watched her chest rise into his touching. "You think you're the only one she pulled that stunt on?"_

 _"Hmmm?"_

 _He smirked into the hazy sound she'd let up, watching her head relax as her eyes stayed closed and her nails strafed up his forearm. "She asked for our address and I told her you'd give it to her while Watson was debriefed."_

 _Her eyes blinked open under a sudden snapped realization. "Sneaky little shit."_

 _"Me or her?" His mouth laid the question down on her shoulder._

 _"Both."_

 _"I'm still not holding your hand in the car." He told her quietly, nipping just half up her throat. "We're not sixteen."_

* * *

He hadn't necessarily lied about it. Because he hadn't reached for her hand in the car.

He'd just possessively stretched the full spread of his palm over her thigh and squeezed, hedging up under the hem of her skirt and stilling while she frowned over trying to get the directions off her PDA.

She made an annoyed sound hum off her pursed lips. "You should've turned left."

"You shoulda given me more warning than 'that was your turn' as we blew by it." He tempered the sharpness of his tone with a slow rubbing of his fingertips, keeping his smirk back as he refused to look at the way she was suddenly watching him.

"If my boss hadn't kept me late you wouldn't need to break the sound barrier to get there." Her snarking was softened just as much as his had been, her fingers backing along his shoulder to knuckle the fabric of his jacket. "Tony was right. This is a nice suit."

Gibbs banked the smirk toward the window, doing his best to ignore the way she'd dropped her tone toward hushing. "Don't flirt with me until after we get there, okay?"

"Next right." Kate murmured, still watching how much he tried to avoid looking at her, how much he was trying not to smartass smile in her direction. "About a mile."

"Thank you."

Her nod was quick, fingers wiping down the sleeve of his jacket, "You're welcome."

* * *

She smiled indulgently when he sighed hard and then dropped the back of his hand into her lap, both their heads still lifted into watching the girl at the piano.

And she laced her fingers into his without turning to face him, without making him confess to the action as his thumb put rubbing pressure into her knuckles.


End file.
